Zeniff: walking in the shoes of his enemies

Zeniff seems to be an interesting, tender-hearted, understanding person. At first he sets out with an army to destroy the lamanites, his fierce enemies. But after spying on them he discovers they have some good qualities so he fights his own people to defend these people he doesn't know.

He eventually makes a deal with the king of these people to bring a few of his people and settle in the land with the lamanites. A few years go by and the lamanites, these people he protected, attack in an attempt to enslave zeniffs people.

After defeating the lamanites, he sends spies out to watch their enemies. They discover that the next king is also sending an army. In the middle Of describing the preparation for this next battle, zeniff begins to make excuses for the lamanites. They are only doing this because this is how they were taught. They were taught that their parents had been robbed and were driven out of the land. Essentially, it seems as of zeniff is asking "what would I do if I had been taught those things. I think I can understand where they are coming from."

of course it doesn't excuse their actions for in the very next verse he says, "I did stimulate them (his army) to go to battle." I'm not sure how well that worked for him telling his people "now these people we're fighting aren't so bad. They just have a misunderstandinding. Let's go get them!" but I guess it worked out cause they won again.

I think zeniff has a lot to teach us concerning how we should respond when someone offends us. I would assume being attacked and having over 200 of your friends and family killed would be somewhat offensiv. Zeniff doesn't respond as his former commander did and say, "we must kill every last one of these infidels. They're all evil and I will personally see they go to hell." instead he says, "why? What makes them so angry." and he truly tries to understand them. Sometimes we get offended over the smallest sliver and will not let it go. We have to continually push that sliver deeper and deeper as we complain about what a horrible person that was giving us a sliver.

Of course sometimes the problem must be resolved. Zeniff couldn't let the lamanites Destroy his people. But he also didn't spend the remainder of his days festering over their injustice. In fact he just seem to go back to life and forgets the whole event "we returned to our land, and my people went back to tending flocks."



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The poorest spot of land and What could I have done more?

I just finished reading Jacob chapter 5 again. I've always read this chapter by applying the world history context; today, I realized some things I'd never thought about before. I'm not sure the thoughts have completely formed, but I will do my best.

For anyone unfamiliar with Jacob chapter 5 from the book of Mormon is an allegory about the Lord's dealings with Israel and the world explained as a vineyardman (don't know the correct term) who with his servant is doing everything he can to save the fruit (us) before the final harvest.

After working hard to place his trees in the right soil and letting mother nature run her course, he returns with his servant to inspect the trees. His servant is baffled by how the lord planted his fruit because he planted the tree in the worst spot of ground. The lord explains that he worked hard to make sure the tree would be good and it did bring forth good fruit. Then they look at a tree that was planted in good soil and only part of it yielded good fruit.

I thought about how this relates to my work life and realized that it doesn't matter how prestigeous the position or where the location is if you are willing to hard at bringing forth good fruit, you can still be successful. When I worked at mcdonalds people would ask where I worked. I would tell them and get the most pitied looks. However, despite my dread of the place after my mission, it gave me a lot of experience and provided me with a pretty good resume. But some people, even those who were managers walked away with nothing because they weren't willing to put in the effort. To them, it was a job that would get them through college or pay their next rent check.

Now, returning to the allegory-after a "long time" goes by the lord returns to his vineyard to find that some of his trees have gone bad yielding rotten fruit. He cries to his servant "what could I have done more?" remember although the story is about the lord of the vineyard it represents the lord of the world. He's then explains that he's done everything he could. But the servant petitions him to give it one more go. He does and ends up finding more he could do to help his poor trees.

Besides the somewhat obvious spiritual application (the lord is going to give us as many chances as he can), this part is signifant to me as a writer. I'll do all I can to get the first draft correct, then after it comes back I'll see several errors I didn't notice whether someone else caught it or not. Even after it has been reviewed by over ten people, proofreader by me several times, and released, I'll still find errors in my work the next time I open the document. (note: this text doesn't count because I'm writing it on my iPhone and these tiny buttons can really be a pain to manipulate just to correct a punctuation or grammar error).

Whether it's writing or some other task, i'm often tempted to say "well, I've done everything I can do. I'm done." of course when that deadline comes around you have to say that, but I think this illustrates that there is always more that can be done. Sometimes we have to turn to others and say, "any ideas what I could do?" but with a little enginuity and a lot more work, you can take something you think is perfect and improve it.

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